I think this is an inconsistent move from the Blahaj team. They defederated feddit over one transphobic user who the admins wouldn’t deal with. And I agree with that decision. They should make the same decision here. If lemmy.ml won’t ban Nutomic, then it’s clear they aren’t interested in creating a safe environment for trans people.
Regardless of any funding question, I think every instance should be questioning federation with .ml over their acceptance of Nutomic. And that goes double for any instance committed to inclusivity, because they have a responsibility to their users to uphold the values those users expect.
Just to clarify, the defederation from feddit.uk has more to do with the admins allowing transphobic comments to remain because of the EHRC ruling and then ghosting Ada when asked to clarify their policies around dealing with transphobia. It wasn’t just one user.
I still agree with considering lemmy.ml for defederation.
the admins allowing transphobic comments to remain
This is a pretty blahaj-centric view of what happened. Their definition of “transphobia” includes “I feel like women with super high testosterone levels competing in women’s sports does get into kind of a legitimate gray area,” “I don’t think dragon is a gender and this person is clearly a malicious troll,” and “dude.”
I don’t think anyone on Lemmy is down with unambiguous transphobia, but blahaj likes to take sort-of-maybe-arguably transphobic or questionable comments and pretend they are Hitler-level hatefulness and then ban anyone who refuses to see it in their 100% un nuanced way.
ghosting Ada when asked to clarify their policies around dealing with transphobia
When did this happen? I mean, they don’t really owe her an explanation, they can run their server the way they want just like she can hers.
If I went to Ada and started demanding she “clarify” her policies on dragon centered trolling she probably wouldn’t spend too much time giving me extensive clarifications on it. Nor should I be able to demand that she needs to.
I don’t think it’s inconsistent. My understanding is that the bad comments were in private messages and although they don’t disown then or apologise for their views, they are not making transphobic comments in threads.
In the feddit case, transphobia discourse was active and unmoderated. I have no doubt that if that was the case for .ml, then blahaj would defederate.
There is no point in federation of you defederate from every instance with bad users. Ban the user, not the instance. In the case of an instance not moderating hateful content, ban the instance.
I can definitely understand how this may seem as an inconsistency on Ada’s part. I’ve been critical of Ada in the past, but I see this as more of Ada taking a calculated, diplomatic approach.
With the Feddit situation, Feddit is just another random Lemmy instance, so there’s no real loss in defederating. But ML is where Lemmy development is centered, and whether Blahaj users like it or not, they do have an intrinsic interest in the development of Lemmy’s code. They want Blahaj to be a safe space, which requires moderation tools to be developed, and it’s helpful to keep an open connection with the developers in that case so that Blahaj’s input and contributions can be considered when these tools are built.
At least, that’s just my speculation as to why there’s an inconsistency.
I think it would be better for Lemmy’s development if everyone defederated lemmy.ml. If Dessalines weren’t so busy banning users on other instances for pointing out the Uyghur genocide, he’d have a lot more time to write code.
the devs of lemmy are already working on it full time. they’re not the ones who do most of the moderation work.
the thing i’ve always hated about most people outside ml is that they always make assumptions, not even wondering if what they’re saying might be false. if you’re gonna be prissy about something, at least get your facts straight.
Dessalines does a ton of the moderation on .ml. He and davel are, as far as I can tell, the main moderators for the whole server and all its communities.
I’m not subscribed to most of their stuff, so it’s hard to check for hard numbers or verify that, but I see him all the time on the “let’s complain about Lemmy.ml moderation” subs. Doing a quick spot-check in the modlog for [email protected], which I am subscribed to, I see:
46% of moderation actions were by davel
39% by dessalines
12% by Arthur Besse
2% by nutomic
0% by the moderators of the community
That’s extremely consistent with what I have observed from the rest of the communities on the server.
not even wondering if what they’re saying might be false
the lemmy.ml modlog is obfuscated. it only says “mod” when you look at who did the moding. plus, the last time the lead devs were appointed as mods was at least 3 years ago, for both dessalines and nutomic, during the reddit exodus.
unless there is information i somehow missed, you’re just proving my point
I think this is an inconsistent move from the Blahaj team. They defederated feddit over one transphobic user who the admins wouldn’t deal with. And I agree with that decision. They should make the same decision here. If lemmy.ml won’t ban Nutomic, then it’s clear they aren’t interested in creating a safe environment for trans people.
Regardless of any funding question, I think every instance should be questioning federation with .ml over their acceptance of Nutomic. And that goes double for any instance committed to inclusivity, because they have a responsibility to their users to uphold the values those users expect.
Just to clarify, the defederation from feddit.uk has more to do with the admins allowing transphobic comments to remain because of the EHRC ruling and then ghosting Ada when asked to clarify their policies around dealing with transphobia. It wasn’t just one user.
I still agree with considering lemmy.ml for defederation.
Source? That’s not what the feddit.uk admins said.
This is a pretty blahaj-centric view of what happened. Their definition of “transphobia” includes “I feel like women with super high testosterone levels competing in women’s sports does get into kind of a legitimate gray area,” “I don’t think dragon is a gender and this person is clearly a malicious troll,” and “dude.”
I don’t think anyone on Lemmy is down with unambiguous transphobia, but blahaj likes to take sort-of-maybe-arguably transphobic or questionable comments and pretend they are Hitler-level hatefulness and then ban anyone who refuses to see it in their 100% un nuanced way.
When did this happen? I mean, they don’t really owe her an explanation, they can run their server the way they want just like she can hers.
If I went to Ada and started demanding she “clarify” her policies on dragon centered trolling she probably wouldn’t spend too much time giving me extensive clarifications on it. Nor should I be able to demand that she needs to.
As a feddit.nl user it would help if you included the TLD, there are several servers that call themselves feddit. 😊
I don’t think it’s inconsistent. My understanding is that the bad comments were in private messages and although they don’t disown then or apologise for their views, they are not making transphobic comments in threads.
In the feddit case, transphobia discourse was active and unmoderated. I have no doubt that if that was the case for .ml, then blahaj would defederate.
There is no point in federation of you defederate from every instance with bad users. Ban the user, not the instance. In the case of an instance not moderating hateful content, ban the instance.
I can definitely understand how this may seem as an inconsistency on Ada’s part. I’ve been critical of Ada in the past, but I see this as more of Ada taking a calculated, diplomatic approach.
With the Feddit situation, Feddit is just another random Lemmy instance, so there’s no real loss in defederating. But ML is where Lemmy development is centered, and whether Blahaj users like it or not, they do have an intrinsic interest in the development of Lemmy’s code. They want Blahaj to be a safe space, which requires moderation tools to be developed, and it’s helpful to keep an open connection with the developers in that case so that Blahaj’s input and contributions can be considered when these tools are built.
At least, that’s just my speculation as to why there’s an inconsistency.
I think it would be better for Lemmy’s development if everyone defederated lemmy.ml. If Dessalines weren’t so busy banning users on other instances for pointing out the Uyghur genocide, he’d have a lot more time to write code.
the devs of lemmy are already working on it full time. they’re not the ones who do most of the moderation work.
the thing i’ve always hated about most people outside ml is that they always make assumptions, not even wondering if what they’re saying might be false. if you’re gonna be prissy about something, at least get your facts straight.
Dessalines does a ton of the moderation on .ml. He and davel are, as far as I can tell, the main moderators for the whole server and all its communities.
I’m not subscribed to most of their stuff, so it’s hard to check for hard numbers or verify that, but I see him all the time on the “let’s complain about Lemmy.ml moderation” subs. Doing a quick spot-check in the modlog for [email protected], which I am subscribed to, I see:
That’s extremely consistent with what I have observed from the rest of the communities on the server.
Why do I hear Alanis Morissette in the distance?
Funny, why is it so common to see the lead dev in the modlog, then?
the lemmy.ml modlog is obfuscated. it only says “mod” when you look at who did the moding. plus, the last time the lead devs were appointed as mods was at least 3 years ago, for both dessalines and nutomic, during the reddit exodus.
unless there is information i somehow missed, you’re just proving my point